


The Very Air

by MomentumDeferred



Series: Of A Fractured Sky [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Biological Warfare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen, Sunshineverse, Survival, Terminal Illnesses, scavenging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 21:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13443837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/pseuds/MomentumDeferred
Summary: Matt was supposed to be his rock. Brave and immobile. Something to hold onto while the world collapsed all around them.It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't fair. It wasn'tfair. Why were they left behind? What unimaginable sin had they committed to deserve this?(Written for a prompt.)





	The Very Air

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a fill for two prompts on my Sunshineverse blog: 
> 
> _"Matt Murdock had always been a catholic. How does losing everything affect his religion (before Matt dies and becomes fullferal!Matt)"_
> 
> and 
> 
> _Are you still taking prompts? If so, I am curious in the role of Matt's Catholicism in the first few chapters of Sunshine. I was rereading it and noticed that he mumbled a prayer as he got up. Thanks._
> 
> The Catholicism didn't make as big as an appearance as I would have liked, since, as always, my writing got away from me. This fic will probably not make much sense unless you've read Sunshine. Also, this marks first time Matt encounters an infected human. Like my last prompt fill, it ended up being really long, and it's easier to just post it on AO3 since Tumblr's formatting page is a nightmare for long fics. Sorry!

It was still so fucking hot, even in the middle of December. Foggy paused in his work among the staggered sunbeams and drifting dust in the apartment, letting the hammer hang heavy in his hand, a clutch of sweaty nails crowded in the other. His insides twisted and grumbled, but he didn't have any food to silence it.

Three weeks. That's how much time had passed. It felt like a fucking year had gone by already, surging ahead and leaving them behind, but nope—it'd only been three fucking weeks.

Surprise.

Every time he woke up alive was a fucking surprise these days. He wasn't sure he was supposed to be here still, but every morning, there he was, rubbing the sting of smoke out of his eyes and ignoring his empty stomach and coughing from the dust. He couldn't do much in the way of survival. He didn't know why Matt kept him around.

At least he hadn't lost track of the days. He was proud of that one tiny thing that he could still do. The Braille calendar that had been hanging up on the wall before the world tripped and broke its neck still remained, and Foggy checked it every day, always crossing out the previous day's square and trying his hardest not to draw dicks all over it for Matt to feel out later.

There wasn't much fun to be had. He needed to take it where he could get it, something _normal_ that he could hold onto. This life now was anything but that.

Still, three weeks. Too long to live in, too short to die in. He wasn't even sure if he _wanted_ to live—that'd been a circling question since the night the sky opened. Everyone was gone. Everything he had. Every person he knew. His job. His _family_. Even if they had managed to survive, and even if he knew where they were, there wasn't any way he could get out to them. Open travel was no longer an option, not in this heat, not with what lurked outside at night.

Foggy didn't know if he wanted to live, but he knew he wanted Matt to. Maybe Matt felt the same way, only in reverse, and if he did, that was enough. Foggy would live for Matt; in return, Matt would live for Foggy. He didn't think it was a very fair trade, but 'fair' was no longer in his vocabulary. Things weren't unfair anymore. They just were.

And right now, they were hot and stifling and smelly, a heady mix of sweat and rot and whatever the fuck it was that had turned the rivers black. As bad as it was for his normal human nose, he couldn't imagine what it smelled like to Matt, nor could he imagine sifting through all of it to root out food and water—which was exactly what Matt was doing right now. God, he had to find _something_ today. He was so hungry.

A drop of sweat went incognito underneath his tank top, down between his shoulder blades; the apartment was broiling. It felt like mid-July, which made him wonder what would it feel like when it was _actually_ July. Dust motes, lit gold by the smoke-red sun, seemed permanently suspended in the dead air. Everything below the sky was painted in shades of orange and everything above the city was the same flat grey-green. It was so hard to get used to, even though it was the thing he stared at the most.

Foggy scoffed at himself. _Get used to_. Like that was a goddamn possibility. He'd never be good with the fucking rifle, or finding food, or hunting down water. He couldn't do half of the things Matt did on the daily. The only real advantage he brought to this weird new partnership was his eyes (which he was sure were never going to feel wet again) and his stupid sense of humor that even he was beginning to loathe with a fucking passion.

Foggy took a breath and bent down to grab another board from the pile on the floor. It used to be Matt's coffee table. Now it was becoming part of the window. They had to close it up for a hundred reasons; the sun was too bright and too hot, and the fucking walking fax machines that wandered around at night were nosey.

The final reason was one he kept to himself: he hated seeing the city, hated looking out and finding a new corpse every day, hated watching the dust swirl and dance through a street that he didn't recognize anymore. He hated to see Matt sitting on the windowsill, their ruined world behind them, a permanent reminder that this was not a dream, it was not a fantasy, and it could not be wiped away. He hated to be able to _see_ what Matt could _feel_ , and couldn't stop feeling.

So, fuck it. He was boarding the windows. At least he was doing something. Something that didn't have to do with putting Matt's intestines back inside him or holding pressure on a wound, feeling the fragile pulse of the one thing he had left slipping through his fingers. He knew, someday soon, that Matt would die. They both would. Everything else already had.

Selfishly, Foggy wished that he would be the one to go first. He couldn't do any of this, not alone. But Matt could survive by himself, find food and water—unlike the ship's anchor he'd lashed himself to. Foggy often wondered why Matt kept him around, but never asked. He knew the answer would be too frightening to hear.

Bitter tastes crept onto his tongue as he held the nails between his lips, hammering the board to the window frame. He'd need more wood, but he wasn't sure where to get it. One of the other apartments, maybe. They'd already taken every scrap of food and every drop of water in the entire building, and somehow, Matt still felt guilty about it.

Foggy pounded another nail in, then stepped back, seeing if it would hold. It didn't move. Sunlight squinted at him through the cracks. He squinted back, sighing and rubbing the sweat off of his forehead. His head was throbbing from dehydration and his mouth felt like all the spit inside it had turned into medical gauze.

He ambled over to the couch, setting the hammer down on the floor with a soft thunk, followed by the pained groan of the couch as he sat on it, pushing his fingers through his hair. It was tangled and filthy, just like Matt's. He missed showers, even more than he missed driving. Taxis. The subway. His mother. Food. Fucking food. He never thought he'd starve, at least not from a situation like this.

Foggy rested the back of his head on the couch, staring at the ceiling support beams. Every once in a while he would shut his eyes, and think hard about how the world used to be, and beg and beg and beg that when he opened his eyes again, it would come back, and everything would be okay again. It only ever remained as a hazy afterimage in his mind.

It hurt, how much he wished he could go back. He'd endure a lifetime of lower class and stolen bagels and broken plumbing if it meant all of this would be over.

"Wish in one hand, shit in the other," he mumbled to himself.

Just past noon. Matt still wasn't home, and Foggy let the worry wind itself tighter and tighter around his insides, a tourniquet for all his rational explanations. Matt was just running late. Matt had smelled something far, far in the distance and it was taking him longer to hoof it back. Matt was hiding from a passing monster. Matt was not dead. Matt was not dead. He would come back. He would always come back.

Foggy wished he could follow him out into the city, watch out for him, keep him safe. But he couldn't. He just wasn't the same. He wasn't strong enough; he wasn't fast enough; he wasn't useful enough. Not yet. Maybe someday, when he wasn't so clumsy or slow or inexperienced, maybe he could go out. Watch Matt's back for him, because Matt wasn't so good at doing that himself.

A soft clatter out in the stairwell caught his attention, and he felt himself bristle, felt his heartrate climb. _This could be it_ , he thought, _this could be when I die_ , but he'd already thought that a million-and-a-half times before today, and he was starting to get tired of the whiplash. He blew out a short breath, trying to calm himself down. It never worked.

He heaved himself up from the couch as quietly as he could, grabbing the hammer from the floor. The sweat on his palm made him grip it harder. It felt heavier than it did earlier. His heart pounded in his head, frightened and rapid despite how he felt like all of his blood had turned to sludge from dehydration.

Foggy walked as quietly as he could to the front door. One of the floorboards creaked under his feet and he yelled inwardly at himself for not trying harder to avoid it. Maybe he could find a marker and draw a circle around it. Matt's landlord wasn't around to charge him for it.

There was another noise, soft and subtle and possibly the nonexistent wind. Could have been a sigh, or huff, or something that was about to break in and kill him. His mind certainly looped around to that last one a whole fucking lot. Matt wasn't here. What could he do?

Foggy blew out a shaky breath, and then a shakier one, reaching for the doorknob. Were those footsteps, or a buzzing fly? Breathing, or the wind? He swallowed back the medical gauze in his mouth and grabbed the knob, twisting it and flinging the door open, raising the hammer up at the same time.

Matt. Matt was there, his own hand outstretched to grab the doorknob, terror on his face and panic in his eyes—a rare sight, and definitely the one that made the tourniquet in Foggy's guts pull itself the tightest. It was so bad that it took him a couple more seconds for his eyes and brain to register the fucking blood. Everywhere, all over Matt's armor and face and hair, and thank fucking Christ he still had the armor.

"Fog," he breathed, and took a staggering step forward. He made a low, soft noise and either tripped or fell, his legs no longer working, and Foggy had to catch him before he smashed his face open on the doorjamb. He dropped the hammer; it drummed an irregular rhythm on the floor that echoed through the catacomb of the stairwell.

The blood all over Matt was hot, fresh, smearing dark-pink through the sweat on his hands. Foggy wanted to scream, but all he hissed out was a warbling _'Matt'_ instead as they both went down to the floor, their knees drumming down on the hardwood, Matt panting sharp and soft in his ear. God, no, not today. He couldn't be wounded that badly. Matt couldn't die today.

"Hey, hey, hey," Foggy said, trying to keep his voice low, another failed attempt at calming himself down. It certainly wasn't calming Matt down; he only breathed harder, damp hot air against Foggy's ear. Panic grabbed him by the throat but he tried his best to wiggle from its grip with a half-wail and an almost-unintelligible, "What happened, Matt, what happened?"

Matt's breathing only shifted lower; he yanked in a short gasp, and then let it out as a heavy sound that Foggy had heard one too many times in the last three weeks. A sob, wet and cracked, Matt splintered all the way down to his bones.

Foggy had to push him away, out to arm's length, blinking the pain out of his own eyes so that he could look Matt over without a wavering filter. The blood was all over him, streaked down his arms and freckled across his face. His chest was soaked in patterns Foggy didn't want to decode. He started patting Matt down, trying to find where the blood was coming from, steeling himself as he anticipated some deep rend that would finally take Matt away from him.

"No, Foggy," Matt said, pushing his hands away.

Foggy pressed on, regardless. "Where are you hurt?" He got a handful of armor plating and tried to tug him closer, but he was too goddamned heavy. Panic made him sob. He barely noticed. "Let me see. You need to let me see."

"No." He was clearly trying to avoid him, probably to go to a corner and lick his wounds by himself, wallowing in both their miseries, the raging Catholic asshole. Matt had come this far, he'd made it home, that had to mean something, even if it wasn't that he was going to live to listen to tomorrow.

"Matt," Foggy said, a hard edge in his voice that hadn't been there before, a tone he preferred to use in court. "Let me help you, Jesus Chr—"

"I'm not hurt," Matt blurted all at once, cutting Foggy off. "It's not my blood. It's not my blood." Revealing that fact made the crack dig deeper, made the fearless mask that he constantly plastered on his face begin to crumble. Tears in his eyes, a downward slough in his expression. "It's not—I couldn't—"

Not his blood? How was that possible? Foggy got through Matt's hands again, stole another handful of plating. Still too heavy to budge. He tried anyway. "What happened? Tell me!"

Matt shook his head, and the tears congregating in the corners of his eyes spilled down between the flecks of blood. Kneeling on the floor with Foggy across from him and the empty darkness of the stairwell behind him, he started sobbing, loud and honest, as honest as Matt could ever be. It was hard to find something that was more difficult to look at than Matt afraid and in a panic. This was it.

Foggy was just as clueless now as he was then, so he did the only thing he knew how to do—grab Matt by his arms and drag himself in close, because he certainly wouldn't be able to pull him closer. He bundled him up more tightly than the tourniquet Matt had made in Foggy's stomach. "It's okay," he said, but it wasn't, and wouldn't be ever again. He had nothing else to offer, besides, "I'm here. Matt, I'm here." Maybe that was enough.

He expected Matt to shy away, untangle himself, brood alone and leave Foggy to his own terrifying thoughts, but instead he relaxed into it, burying his sandpaper-lined face into Foggy's neck, pressing in as hard as he could. Foggy held him tighter, until he thought his arms might break, both of them rocking back and forth as Matt, again, fell apart against his chest and gathered in shards on the scuffed hardwood floor.

But Foggy was beginning to run out of glue, and there wasn't going to be enough for the both of them at this rate. He had to hurry to put them back together before they lost more pieces.

Matt continued to shiver and sob through the oppressive heat of the apartment, and Foggy kept on holding him, even when his legs fell asleep and all of the spaces between the two of them were slick with sweat. If he let go or even relaxed his arms, Matt might fall apart again, and Foggy wasn't sure if he would be able to find all the pieces this time.

Eventually, incrementally, Matt started to calm down. The sobbing turned to sniffling and the sniffling turned to faint sighs. There was going to be an impression of Matt's face on Foggy's neck permanently after this, although he wasn't sure that it would look like anything besides a cactus.

Foggy's tank top was soaked with sweat, and tears, and blood. He didn't have another one, not one that fit, at least. If he'd known all it took to lose all that extra weight was three weeks in this fucking hellscape, he wouldn't have wasted his time with all those stupid diets. He would have also spent his meagre savings on all the booze he could drink.

He waited another few minutes to make sure Matt was okay—all right, fine, to make sure they'd _both_ be okay—before he pulled back, and as soon as there was an inch between them, Matt took his cue, and slipped away from Foggy's reach, sitting on his knees in the doorway. The blood on his arms had dried. His eyes were bloodshot and wouldn't stay still.

All that was left to ring in the stairwell were Matt's soft breaths, Foggy's heavier echoes. The silence returned to them, crowding around everything, just like the heat did. Foggy had been living with a backdrop of people walking and cars honking and endless white noise his whole life. It made him feel like he was living in a different world entirely.

Well. He was. He really was.

Foggy tried to turn it back, to remind himself of his last life, and spoke out loud. His voice was too quiet. All he achieved was turning the stairwell into an empty abattoir. "Matt...can you tell me what happened?"

Matt lifted his head, and the veneer over his face crumpled for a sharp second before he could messily shore it back up again. "It..." he blew out a breath, took a deeper one, centering himself even as he started twisting the hem of his shirt in his hands. "I...I got attacked."

The words made Foggy's heart do a fucking three-point dive. Ten out of ten. "An alien?"

He shook his head harshly, blinking hard. More tears came, and continued their favorite path between the blood and dust. "No, not an alien. It was a person." He had to take a couple more breaths. "A woman."

"Another survivor?" Foggy didn't even know there were other people alive. They must have been as terrible people as Foggy and Matt were, to be locked away and left in limbo. "Were they—"

Matt spoke over him. "She attacked me."

Fuck, they were already going full Mad Max in this shit. "Why?"

"I don't know." His words slurred together and he sounded like a child. "I don't know, I don't know." His breathing quickened, got heavier. "I tried to—" a sharp breath, almost a hiccup, "—I tried to talk. To talk to her. She—she wasn't...she couldn't—"

That's as far as Matt could get. His words left him, and he just started sobbing, and if he wasn't describing the toughest son of a bitch he'd ever known, Foggy would call it hysterical.

"Matt..." He came closer, reaching out to touch Matt's arm, or shoulder, or anything, to tell him he wasn't alone, but Matt shrank away until he hit the opposite wall, where he curled his knees against his chest and only cried harder. He managed to get words out, but they were garbled, choked. "I had to kill her, Foggy. I had to kill her."

"You..." Foggy bit down on his reflexive response. Matt had _killed_ someone, another _person_. Of course it would come to that, of _course_ , but that didn't make it easier. It didn't make it okay. Foggy didn't know what to say to fix it, because there wasn't a fix for this. No magic cure, no Avengers swooping in and taking back all that had been done. Just them and the dust. His voice came out robotically. "You had to."

Matt bowed his head, ashamed, swallowing down his breathy sobbing just long enough to murmur, "I knew her," and those three words seemed enough to take Matt down to nothing, crush him down to this broken mess that Foggy would never be able to put together again. He rubbed hard at the tops of his knuckles, as if to remove blood from them, but there wasn't any blood at all. The same bruises, the same scabs.

Foggy wondered how Matt had done it, how he'd killed her, and felt horror at himself, followed by horror for everything around him, even Matt, and he couldn't stop it from crashing over him like an ice-cold wave, twisting up everything inside him and stealing his breath. His eyes burned and he couldn't stop his face from twisting and turning down. Matt was supposed to be his rock. Brave and immobile. Something to hold onto while the world collapsed all around them.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't fair. It wasn't _fair._ Why were they left behind? What unimaginable sin had they committed to deserve this?

Two seconds later, Foggy was crying just as hard as Matt was, angry and terrified and so, so, so tired. He wanted this to be over. He couldn't do it anymore. His own pain he could handle, but taking on Matt's as well? That was the worst part about all of this, seeing all this pain in Matt that he couldn't rout.

He wasn't sure how long they both knelt there, clutching to their own buoys, but it was Matt who stopped crying first, and Foggy some time after. When he finally noticed, it was because it was so quiet, all his strangled noises echoing around the apartment. There was a hand on his back, Matt's, rubbing in faint circles. He really fucking sucked at comforting people, but for Foggy, it was enough. It helped, when he knew nothing else would.

Foggy eventually grew too tired to keep sobbing, leaving them both to steep in the quiet of the apartment. Matt shifted, but Foggy clung on. He didn't want to let go. What if he did, and Matt disappeared forever?

There was a growing realization that Matt was all he had, the only thing he had left anymore. In three weeks, his entire world had shifted and warped from New York City and its people and summer stench and honking taxis to just this, just Matt, this collection of damage and scars that he couldn't let go, and couldn't lose.

Again, Matt tried to pull back, and Foggy seized another handful of his blood-spattered shirt. Warm fingers closed around his, gently uncurling his grip. Matt spoke, his voice so soft that it was the first thing that didn't echo, "I'm okay, Foggy. I'm okay."

"I'm not," Foggy whispered.

He was quiet for a few seconds, then followed Foggy's grip, and embraced him again. Submerged in his entire universe, everything started to come together, at least as much as it feasibly could. Matt was warm, and whole, and right there in front of him. Maybe not safe, but steady. He smelled like copper and dust and the sweet-sick rot of millions of bodies bloating under the sun.

Time stretched out, and Foggy lost track of it, nearly falling asleep against Matt's shoulder. Another shift from Matt and he realized what was happening. His legs were aching and his right foot had gone numb. Maybe the floor wasn't the best place to fucking hug it out.

Matt pulled back, soft and gentle, as if asking for permission to move instead of simply doing it. Foggy let him go, even though it hurt and brought the tourniquet back, but they couldn't live all tangled up like that even if they wanted to.

The gap between them felt like a canyon. Foggy rubbed his eyes, getting the dust and tears out of them as he sank back on his haunches again. He sniffed, and wiped his nose, and steeled himself before lifting his head to look at Matt.

His friend was straight-backed, bloodshot eyes pointed at the floor, hands fiddling with one edge of his armor. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry this happened, Foggy."

And there was Matt, eating the blame, taking it all onto himself and then some because he was the one who wore his guilt like a cloak that he couldn't take off, he was the one who carried it all, day in and day out, because it was reflex. Because it was normal. It's just what he was used to.

Foggy sighed, heavy and long. "It's not your fault." How many times had he said that over these last three weeks, and how many times did Matt refuse to acknowledge it? Just once, like always. "Pump your fucking brakes with that shit, Matt, you know this isn't all on you."

"I could have saved her."

"How?"

Matt's eyes were glued to the floor. His voice was defiant but directionless. "...I don't know."

"She was going to kill you. She was going to kill you and you defended yourself. What the fuck does that make you? Definitely not a monster. You protected yourself. You protected both of us."

"She couldn't even talk, Foggy. There was something wrong."

"So she hit her head. Or she was dehydrated."

"...No. It...it wasn't like that. I know what...what dehydration feels like. What it smells like. What it sounds like. It wasn't dehydration. It wasn't a concussion." He rubbed his face, expression twisting in disgust as if he could still feel the flecks of blood. "It's like she wasn't even human anymore."

Foggy felt his stomach turn. Nausea rose in the back of his throat. "What are you getting at?" Words flitted through his head. Memories of movies and television shows followed them. There wasn't any fucking way. This was completely ridiculous.

"She smelled like...it wasn't like the aliens at all, but it kind of...kind of reminded me of them. Inhuman." His eyes flicked around randomly. "It was hard for me to keep track of her, she was shaking so hard. Like she was cold."

"It's a hundred degrees out."

Matt blinked more tears out of his eyes, fighting off another meltdown. God, he was so exhausted, he could barely keep himself upright. They both were, but they both always seemed to have each other to lean against. "I know."

Foggy stared at the floor, trying to digest. "Of all the fucking things," he breathed, rubbing his face. Everything felt like it was caging him in, from the dirty air to the sweat in his eyes and the dust grating against his skin. Trapped. Both of them, in this brick-and-mortar mousetrap that they would never be able to leave. "This is insane."

"It's been past that for weeks," Matt mumbled, dragging his fingers through his tangled hair. "What are we going to do?"

Matt wasn't supposed to be asking that question. Foggy was supposed to. Foggy was the one without experience, without sense, without strength. Matt was the rudder, not him, he never had been and never would be. He wasn't good enough.

He answered anyway, with the only words he could find. The singular truth he still had. His goddamned anthem, his Cliffsnotes, his blurb-on-the-back-of-the-book.

"I don't know."

Judging by Matt's crying, he didn't, either.

\---

They were silent for a while, not that they had anything to talk about besides the looming fucking zombie problem, and Foggy was pretty sure neither of them wanted to debate it. Matt peeled himself out of his armor and left it in a heap in the middle of the apartment, avoiding it like a wet spot on a rug as he sat on a windowsill, eyes fixed downward. He cleaned the blood off of himself in silence with a spit-laced rag, and even from across the room Foggy could tell he was being careful not to lick the same spot twice.

All the water Foggy had brought three weeks ago was long, long gone, and in its absence, they had whatever Matt could find out in the city. They couldn't waste it on cleaning. The low thrum of dehydrated blood was a constant presence in Foggy's ears. He doubted he'd ever be without that again.

Hunger was another thing he was trying to get used to. Matt seemed to be able to go for days without eating anything, but he never had an appetite—or that's what he kept saying. Maybe it was true. Maybe it was more Catholic idiocy, a punishment for not being able to become God Himself and stop what had happened to New York and the millions that lived there. And now, the zombie thing. Jesus Christ.

Foggy could give less of a shit. He grabbed what they'd been nibbling on for a day or so—a stale bag of fucking Honey Nut Chex Mix, and made his way over, ignoring Matt's frown and obvious intent to stay stuck in his head all fucking night. "You gotta eat," Foggy said, sitting on the other side of the windowsill.

"I'm not hungry."

"I don't care." Foggy shook the bag. "I left you the pretzels."

Matt's brow furrowed, and for a second, Foggy thought he was going to either launch into a tirade about how terrible a person he was or how he didn't deserve it, or something equally ridiculous, but before he could spout off Foggy grabbed his wrist and put the bag in Matt's hand. "Eat."

"I'm not clean yet," Matt said, putting the food aside carefully, reverently.

"Let me see." Foggy leaned in as Matt tilted back, displaying himself with his usual submissive sigh that meant he wasn't in the mood to fight or run or make an argument out of it. He usually lost those, anyway. "Yeah, a couple spots." Without asking, Foggy took the rag and went to work. "Eat."

Up this close and he could see the struggle in Matt's body, in his uneven breaths—a fight not to break down crying again. They cried so much these days. It was really starting to get tiring. And just when they thought there was nothing more to cry about, something new would come along, and some scabbing wound would be ripped open again.

"Just eat. Don't worry about anything else."

Matt nodded slowly, pushing the little pretzels into his mouth one at a time, as if to savor them, and for a while, the only noises in the room were his hesitant chewing and the rag scraping over his skin. Foggy thought of a hundred different things to say, a thousand meaningless platitudes, but said none of them. He knew better than anyone that it wouldn't change anything.

So they sat there, in the stifling sun and dust and quiet, until the rag was stained pink, and the food was gone, and Matt was once again crying into his shoulder.

\---

Foggy awoke from a back-stiffening, accidental nap to the smell of smoke in the air. He rolled over on the couch, intending to ignore it, because everything was always on fire, at least in the first week. It hadn't smelled this close in a long time. Almost like it was right outside.

Crap.

He rocked himself upright, groaning as his spine cracked like a handful of bubble wrap. God, if only he'd taken the stairs more often. The hardwood was warm under his thinly-socked feet, and the smell of smoke only got stronger as he moved toward the roof access. Something outside must have caught, but he wasn't sure how.

The stairs creaked in unison with his shit knees as he slowly ascended, hating his body—and hating the world even more—with every step. A handful of _If only I'd_ s swarmed in his mind, like they always did when he had to do anything painfully physical. _If only I'd taken the stairs more often. If only I'd dieted. If only I'd joined Matt on his stupid dances on rooftops instead of eating pizza and watching fucking Star Trek._

Foggy pushed the door open, and smoke stung his eyes. So close. What was even burning? He tried to wave the smoke away, but it kept hanging there, suspended in the stagnant air. Something was crackling; fire. Right in front of him.

"Matt!" he called, like he always did, at every shadow, every slight sign of danger, there he was, begging for his friend.

The voice came from only a few feet away. "Right here."

"Matt?" he asked, hoping for an answer as he waded through the standing smoke, waving his hands uselessly like a fucking penguin. When he stepped into clean air he gasped and sighed, frowning.

Matt was standing next to a metal drum—God knows where it had come from—with flames leaping from its open mouth and his armor bundled up in his arms. His face was heavy with the same shit that had been weighing it down his whole life. It seemed twice as bad now. He'd been crying; Foggy could see it.

He lifted his arms, and Foggy jolted forward. "Hey, don't—"

Too late. Without hesitation, Matt dumped the whole mess into the barrel, dusting off his hands as if he were cleaning himself of some random muck. Foggy rushed forward, trying to save it, but he could hear the fire hissing away, more smoke plumping up, thick and black. Damn it.

"Sorry," Matt said, and Foggy nearly told him just how sorry he should be, but then he followed with, "the wind's blowing it at the door, huh?" Which was not exactly the apology Foggy was looking for.

He shook his head, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. They _needed_ that. _Matt_ needed that. "Why did you—"

All the words tumbled out of Matt at once. "I don't deserve it. I don't deserve to wear this anymore, Foggy." Panic tinged his voice, the same panic that had been there when the world ended. When he'd called and told Foggy to come to his apartment. He shook his head, still crying, although some of it could have been from the smoke. "It's not my mantle to carry. Not now. Not after yesterday." His voice became a low, hazy mumble. "...Not after all this." He waved around them, as if the evidence of how fucked they were wasn't evident in every breath of dust, in every fucking second they remained alive in the stifling silence of the city.

"That was your only protection," Foggy said, clenching his fists to prevent his hands from reaching into the fire to dig the stupid thing out. The barrel hissed as the flames chewed away at the plastic, or Kevlar, whatever the fuck it was made from. Didn't matter now. "We needed that."

"We don't," Matt breathed, wiping his face with the backs of his hands. " _I_ don't."

"This isn't the time for your Catholic bullshit, Matt, this is about survival. For both of us!"

Matt turned his face away, frowning, stubborn. Foggy should have known he was going to pull some bullshit like this, but he knew Matt didn't care. Matt would die for his own self-perceived sins a thousand times if he could, and gladly. Fucking idiot. Fucking religion.

Foggy let out a long, loud sigh, and then was moving away from Matt and the fire before he could even stop himself. He got inside but not past the landing, leaning against the railing with both hands, taking deep breaths. The last thing they needed was a fucking fight. Not after all this bullshit. Not after _fucking zombies, seriously?!_

But Matt didn't put out the fire. He stayed out there, and kept staying out there, until Foggy tired of staring at the boarded windows and went back outside. There wasn't as much smoke; the suit must have been nearly burned out. Fine. They could make this work. If anyone could, it was them, right?

Matt was silent, sitting on an upturned bucket, hands under his legs and head bowed, making him look much smaller than he was. God, did Foggy hate to see this shit. He'd seen too much of it, too much of everything. Another bad day when their lives were full of them.

It didn't matter. He had to cling to what he had; they both did. Foggy skirted slowly around the barrel, then made his way to Matt's side. Matt didn't respond, didn't lift his head—hiding more tears from Foggy, who always saw every single one.

Hiding his sigh, Foggy sat down on the floor next to Matt and his bucket, holding his words in his mouth. This was beyond the armor, he knew, beyond what made Matt wear it. There was more than just that in the barrel, burning away, so much that Matt wouldn't have to—didn't _want to_ —carry anymore. This wasn't a petulant lash out at Matt's past life, nor was it an impulsive act made out of anger or fear.

Matt had been thinking about this for a long time.

Foggy drew his legs up, resting his arms on his knees. Something popped in the barrel and embers drifted up and out, dancing on the near-breeze, and Foggy watched them, knowing that Matt couldn't.

"Are you mad?" came Matt's quiet voice, like a child expecting a beating.

He didn't have to think about his response. "Yeah. But not at you."

"I'm sorry," Matt said, swallowing back the sob that tried to follow. Foggy heard it. Foggy heard everything. It was the one thing he was better than Matt at listening to.

"It's not your fault."

Matt curled up a little tighter at that, dragging his hands out from under his legs and interlocking his fingers at the back of his neck, like he was preparing for a fucking plane crash. He was crying, trying so hard to hide it, ashamed of how much the world had ground him down and torn him apart.

The barrel popped again; Matt stifled a sob. Foggy watched, and watched, then reached up and placed a hand on his friend's back. He only cried harder.

"I know, Matt, I know," he mumbled, wondering how the smoke had stung his eyes so badly when it was moving downwind from them. He tugged on Matt's shirt, and the bucket was abandoned so they could sit side-by-side, Foggy pulling him close, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, once again giving up his newly-dried shirt to his shattered friend.

They sat there for ages, until the fire burned out, and all the smoke was gone. Out of the corner of his eye Foggy could see the sun beginning to dip below the horizon, setting the sky alight in terrible shades of dirty purple and brilliant, brilliant green. It was strange how quickly he'd gotten used to the color, when he was still in denial about how fucked up _everything_ was.

Matt had it worse; he had everything worse, but at least he had Foggy. He had the apartment. He had his religion—or maybe he didn't, anymore. How could God let these things happen to His creations?

Yeah, Matt had it worse. A lot worse. And of course, he wasn't going to talk about it, not something as deep and binding as religion. Even if he did bring it up, Foggy wouldn't be able to give him an answer, not one that he hadn't dredged from a movie or fucking television show. God works in mysterious ways and all that bullshit Matt wouldn't want to hear.

So they didn't talk about it. They both knew they had their own answers already.

The sky went out, purple and green turning to filthy grey, turning to coal black. Matt was still curled up next to him, maybe asleep, maybe praying, maybe questioning every decision he'd ever made up to this point. Thing was, not even Foggy could come up with something they could have done better. It was a miracle they were alive.

"We have to go inside, Matty. It's getting dark."

Matt shifted. His voice was low, dead. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Foggy echoed, awkwardly. He detangled himself, for once not feeling the stiffness or pain in his back as he climbed to his feet, then held out a hand to help Matt to his. He took it, he always did, and Foggy could feel how much weight he'd lost, how little there was left of his friend that he thought couldn't get any smaller.

They carried each other, in their own ways, back to the apartment, back to the darkness and the silence and the brewing terror of trying to sleep to the sound of distant, alien warbling. Every night.

The stairs creaked as they descended them, and they split off immediately, Foggy to the bed, Matt to the couch, where they'd always slept. It was always so cold in the bedroom, even when he left the door open, trying to listen for the interlopers' singing and Matt's breaths at the same time.

A melodic wail started before Foggy even laid down. Close. Had it smelled the fire? He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, a rough chill lashing through his body. God, the noise would almost be beautiful if they hadn't come from the worst instrument imaginable. He wasn't gonna sleep much tonight, but he laid down anyway, pushing his face into the smell of dust and rot that clung to the mattress.

Two minutes later and Matt was there, wordless, climbing onto the bed and tucking himself up against Foggy's side. It was strange how little Foggy cared about them sharing a bed, and how harshly the question of why they hadn't been doing this from the start struck him. Was it supposed to be awkward? It wasn't—it felt right. It felt safe.

He sighed out a mix of fear and relief and content as he rolled to his side, pulling Matt closer, sharing the blanket between them. They listened together as the monster outside moved from street to street, wailing, chittering, singing. Around the front then past the back and out northward, toward Central Park, calling and calling like a wolf seeking its pack.

Finally, Matt relaxed, pillowing his head on his arm, his breaths slowing, exhaustion taking over. Always, always so tired, always waking up at every noise, every shift of stone outside.

Foggy kept him awake for only a moment longer. "Hey," he breathed.

"Huh?"

"That suit made you look fat, anyway."

It took Matt a few seconds to process, and then he laughed, and even though it was near-silent, under his breath, Foggy knew it was genuine.

And in that one sharp moment, one of the moments Foggy stuck around for, everything was okay. Everything was okay. He slept, and woke up the next morning alive, clinging to Matt like he was a life preserver in a world-breaking storm.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by Vicks and [TeeJay.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_teejay/pseuds/tj_teejay) HTML help by [TeeJay.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_teejay/pseuds/tj_teejay)
> 
> Sorry it's been so long since you've seen me! Life has been chaotic for the last year. This is me trying to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully I'm not too rusty. Thank you for reading!
> 
> Title is from a song in the [Dear Esther soundtrack.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9InyKO1c68&)


End file.
